Modern networks can comprise a variety of devices, which may be connected in a numerous ways. A network can be, for example, centralized or ad hoc. In the latter case, each networked device, or node, can act as a router to forward data from other nodes, in addition to communicating its own data.
These wireless networks, however, have their limitations. For example, certain networks may use a highly decentralized topography dictated by the locations and movement of the nodes which the network is designed to connect. The coverage and reliability of these networks may be heavily affected by the time required to discover new nodes and join them to the network, as well as the time needed to rejoin previously-connected nodes to the network when a network link fails or is extinguished by the departure of a node. Moreover, certain techniques and methods for discovering nodes and joining them to the network may promote network scalability for certain topologies much more than for others.